Adams Co. approves juvenile court contract

RITZVILLE — The Adams County Board of Commissioners voted during their regular meeting Aug. 1 to approve and sign the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Implementation County Program Agreement, which continues the Adams County Juvenile Services funding and cooperation with JDAI.

The contract comes after Juan Garza, the administrator of Adams County Juvenile Court Services, discussed the JDAI contract during a Board of Commissioners workshop June 27.

“I believe it was about a month and a half, maybe two months ago that I came before this board to request the possibility of letting go of our JDAI state funds because of all the additional data and requirements that are unfunded and that are just taking a toll on our office,” said Garza during the June 27 workshop.

Garza presented multiple options to the board, such as dropping JDAI and still continuing the programs they implemented from the program, but without the funding and extra requirements. Garza said that Juvenile Services is not at full staff and they are seeing a rise in juveniles in their facility, and the JDAI requirements take his staff away from their normal workload.

“We are now the only Eastern Washington Jurisdiction that is part of JDAI. All the other counties have dropped out for very similar reasons,” said Garza.

“We usually get $24500, but for the next two years, through 2025, they’re giving us 28,000 because there is a county that got out of it recently,” said Priscilla Olascon, the administrative assistant for Juvenile Services.

Garza said that they are only considering staying with JDAI due to this increase in funding, but that the funding has to be used toward a Full Time Equivalent position with Juvenile Services, which is a position Garza wants to remain in his office even if they back out JDAI and the funding for the position goes away.

The commissioners said that because they are responsible for the whole county’s budget, they have to be very careful in evaluating the funding that they give up. Commissioner Jay R. Weiss said that he would rather make use of the extra funding for the next two years than back out of JDAI at the moment, but he said the commissioners and Garza would reevaluate when during the next budgeting period.

By the end of the workshop, the commissioners and Garza agreed to stay with JDAI for the time being and redistribute the workload in the Juvenile Services office with the knowledge that the county will support keeping the JDAI-funded position intact even if Juvenile Services backs out of JDAI at a later date, which Garza said was why he had not already distributed some of the JDAI program work to the JDAI funded position.

“What it’s coming down to, I think,” said Weiss, “is … if we continue with JDAI, just because, but we don’t make that position contingent on whether we had JDAI money or not. So let’s pull this thing out for a while, see where we’re at, continue to use that money … If JDAI money goes away, I don’t want to get rid of that body.”

At the Aug. 1 Adams County Commissioners meeting, the commissioners approved the implementation agreement to continue with the JDAI program with funding of $56,000. Garza said the funds were greater than expected due to so many counties in Washington backing out of JDAI and those funds being redistributed to the counties still participating in the program.

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com.